You are every age you’ve ever been...

a brief walk down memory lane on the eve of my 40th birthday.... 

When I turned 30, my mom gave me one of my favorite presents ever. She made a scrapbook for me of some of her favorite pictures through the years. (I have taken quick shots of them and have pasted them below.)  Then she left two spots below for me to put pictures of our children. We knew about Anna then when I was 30 as she was just 4 months old at the time.  Taylor was the icing on the cake a few years later.  Through the years, I have collected pictures of Anna and Taylor at around the same ages and stages and placed them in the scrapbook. Some of them are uncanny in the similarities between me and Anna in particular with our baby pictures. 

page #1 in scrapbook 

Emily - summer 1973 

Anna- 2003 

Taylor - 2005 

You are every age you’ve ever been. –Madeleine L’Engle 

Lauren Winners shares the wisdom of her friend’s mother: 

“Every ten years you have to remake everything.” 

Reshape yourself. Reorient yourself. Remake everything.  

-Still pg 31

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.

You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. - Frederick Buechner

As Brennan Manning has written,

" Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.  This is your true self.  Every other identity is an illusion."

The art of really celebrating life isn’t about getting it right – but about receiving Grace. –Ann Voskamp  

Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth. Give Thanks. Become the gift.

 –Ann Voskamp 

“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”

Anne Lamott (I think this one is from Traveling Mercies)

“Celebrate God all day, every day.

I mean, revel in Him!"

Phil 4:7 The Message

I will ask my Father for help when I fail. 

I will swim in grace. 

I will take joy in His help.  

http://www.naptimediaries.com/2013/02/give-her-grace.html

There are few things more subversive in this world than someone who sees grace in every corner, who chuckles easy and loves easy and has both whimsy and mirth mixed in with even their honest assessments of the way things truly are. These glad-hearted people have discovered that thankfulness is not merely a discipline but the only sane way to live in a world offering so much gritty beauty, so much possibility for love, so many joys.

These unlikely provocateurs have not caved to rose-tinted glasses or withdrawn from bitter reality. They simply know that sorrow does not finally own the day. They do not ignore the pain. Quite the opposite, their heart has grown so large that the life they know possesses the courage to see all that is wrong and yet has strength enough to gather the afflictions into itself, allowing love to tend to the wounds. They know that joy, not misery, holds the ace. And they are so very, very thankful.

“Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth,” say Barth. 

“Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightning.”

– Winn Collier http://winncollier.com/like-thunder-follows-lightning/

“Look at the lines beside these eyes of mine. Like parenthesis. They cup all that I have seen – a testament to the fact that your mercies are actually new every morning.”

 –Lisa Jo Baker

But here’s the thing: the more we try to compensate for our weak places, the more we try to edit the “us” others encounter, the more we attempt to hide the fact that we really aren’t nearly as smart or agile or profound or intriguing as we suspect others judge us to be (or as we desire for others to judge us to be), the less we become our true selves, the less beauty we’re able to give away. Worse, as we maneuver and manipulate in all these places, we will find ourselves exhausted by our self-absorption….The world does not need perfection. It doesn’t need the best ‘you’ that you can dream up. The world needs you. The actual you. Foibles and giggles and goofiness and all.  

http://winncollier.com/an-inadequate-grace/

I'm something like halfway. Today, the calendar flips to 40. There's that moment in every good novel when you're mid-through, the pages to the left as thick as the pages to the right. And you pause. You sigh deep for the story that won't let you loose, resting to breathe in the words and characters and memories before you eagerly dive into the long second stretch. This is that moment in the story of my life.

I'm grateful for the place I find myself. I'm in love with the woman who owns my heart. I have two boys who are going to be good men in this world. I've learned what true friendship looks like. I even think I'm on my way to learning what I'm about - what I love (and what makes me roll my eyes), where I'm eager to give energy (and what I simply don't have time for). I've learned more of the questions worth asking - and yes, a few answers to the questions I've long been asking. Added years brings fewer words but more tears, less BS but more fire. With age, you learn it's ok to shrug and walk away. I've got plenty of time to putter, but no time to dink around with another's man's fight or another man's dream. If you're pushing ego, you've lost my interest. But if you're dealing with life, I'm on your team.

And I'm hopeful for where I'm heading. I plan to walk slower and watch closer and get misty-eyed more often. I want to call friends for no reason and kiss Miska for every reason and make space for stories - because stories are the language able to carry the weight of our life. I want to be generous. I want to stop and chat with the trees more often. I want to drink more tea - on the balcony, at sunset, with Miska. I've found brotherhood with a few good men -- I'll be sticking with them. I want to craft words that are true to the way I see things, even if what I see is foggy or foolish. I want to keep telling Wyatt and Seth who they are. I want to be a lover. 

- Winn Collier http://blog.winncollier.com/2011/11/halfway.html